Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘Destroyed’: Alec Baldwin’s Lawyer Fights ‘Rust’ Shooting Charge with Stunning Firearm Claim

Episode Date: March 11, 2023

Alec Baldwin’s lawyer claimed the firearm used in the “Rust” movie set shooting that killed Halyna Hutchins was destroyed by authorities. Prosecutors were quick to deny the claim, saying the gun was not “destroyed,” but rather “damaged.” The famed actor still faces one count of involuntary manslaughter, a fourth-degree felony that carries a sentence of 18 months in prison. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber breaks down the claim and what’s next for Baldwin with criminal defense attorney Randy Zelin.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller

that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. I do have some very unfortunate news to tell you. She didn't make it. Yeah. So Joe's still at the hospital, but the other person involved didn't make it. Alec Baldwin's legal team claims the New Mexico government destroyed the gun that was used in the Russ movie set shooting. But the prosecutors say that's not true.

Criminal defense attorney Randy Zellin tries to make sense of the latest in this high-profile case. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Well, it is that time, and it is the time to get into the latest with the Alec Baldwin criminal case. And this is all regarding the deadly shooting on the New Mexico movie set Russ that resulted in the death of cinematographer Helena Hutchins. So as we know, Baldwin and Rust armor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, they were both charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter for their alleged roles in this tragic shooting that happened on October 21st, Baldwin was the one holding the gun. There's a dispute over whether he actually pulled the trigger.

We know that he was pointing it in the direction of Helena Hutchins, and the gun did go off, striking her and also wounding director Joel Sousa. And of course, Gutierrez-Reed, she was the armor. It was arguably her responsibility to check the weapon, and sure there were no live rounds in the gun or made their way on the set. Now, both have denied any criminal liability for the events. There is a third person, Dave Halls. This is the film's first assistant director.

He took a deal, plead guilty, misdemeanor charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon for handing the weapon over to Baldwin without checking. And he would plead guilty to this in exchange for receiving a suspended sentence in six months of probation. So that's the backstory. But now, we got to get into some very, very, very interesting updates. And I thought, who better to bring in than criminal defense. attorney Randy Zellon, who I've actually debated a little bit with on the Alec Baldwin case.

Randy, it's always good to see you. I appreciate you taking the time to come here on Sidebar. I think this is your first appearance on Sidebar. It is. It's a privilege to be with you. All right. Well, let's get into the bombshell. So the bombshell is there is this virtual hearing.

It's a short status conference, you know, where you deal with issues of scheduling and how this trial is going to look and how the process is going to look. And it seemed relatively straightforward until Baldwin's attorney. Alex Spiro told the judge that the New Mexico government destroyed the gun, the firearm. The main piece of evidence in this case. He says, quote, I think I should tell the court that the firearm in this case, that's a great subject of it, was destroyed by the state. So that's obviously an issue.

I mean, you think he basically said this. And we hear the interesting part was he said that he'd like to see the firearm or what's left of it. Now, the prosecution didn't say anything about this in the hearing. They were completely mum. But afterwards, in a statement to CNBC, they wrote, quote, the gun Alec Baldwin used in the shooting that killed Helena Hutchins has not been destroyed by the state. The gun is in evidence and is available for the defense to review. This is from Heather Brewer, spokesperson for the New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney's

Office. And she went on to say that the defense's unexpected statement in the status hearing today that the gun has been destroyed by the state may be a reference to a statement in the FBI's July 2020 firearms testing report that said damage was done to internal components of the gun during FBI's functionality testing. However, the gun still exists and can be used as evidence. Randy, you've got to make sense of this for me. What's going on here? Well, first of all, Mr. Baldwin is extremely lucky to have Alex Spiro joining his team. I am lucky enough to consider Alex a friend.

He is one of the finest criminal defense attorneys on the planet. There's probably no one in greater demand right now than Alex and with good reason. But it's very interesting what the prosecutor said is kind of like me saying, I have hair. Technically, I do. I don't have a lot of it. it's not like the prosecutor said this is outrageous, this is sanctionable, how dare the defense say that the gun has been destroyed? No. It sounds like what he was trying to say is, yeah, we have the gun. It's in pieces or we have some of the gun, but no, it is, that is dancing between raindrops.

I am sure what they have is a gun that they took apart and like me aren't able to put it back together or maybe lost a couple of pieces. And the gun really is the case from the standpoint of one of Mr. Baldwin's defenses is, I can't be responsible for this homicide because I didn't pull the trigger. So there is a question of operability. Well, the defense is entitled to test that weapon to see whether, in fact, it was operable. And the government has the burden of demonstrating that the weapon was operable at the time that it was fired. So if, the gun is in pieces or there are pieces missing, the government is screwed. Capital S, capital C, capital R, capital W, and however you spell screw. Well, I have to ask you, why

wouldn't they say this in the hearing? Did they have to go back and check, do we actually have this thing? I mean, look, you and I'll debate maybe a little bit about the substance of the case, but the fact that they didn't speak up in the hearing in front of the judge, but released the statement after the fact, I'm not sure I understand that. Oops. It's called Oops. It is either of, oh, man, I can't believe they're bringing that up now or they didn't know that Alex was going to bring it up. They got caught with their pants down. And certainly, yeah, it's like everything else in life. You are expected to speak up in the moment. Don't tell me 90 days from now, six months from now a year from now, give me an explanation. You owed me the credible explanation in

the moment. Okay, so let me ask you this. Let's do a little bit of a probability here. Let's play this out. Let's say the gun is not in a position to be tested, or let's say the gun really is so damaged. So what we know. Well, that's what my question is, right? So if the state and the FBI had an opportunity to test it, but the defense does not have an opportunity to have their own experts, you're saying this case is. Offer, offer Alex Baldwin a misdemeanor, some kind of negligent handling, and call it a day. So this would end, I mean, completely different case, but this would end faster than the Robert Kraft case. Like, if you don't have this piece of evidence, this is done.

And by the way, you know who Mr. Kraft's defense attorney was in that case? Was it Spiro? It was, I'm sorry? It was Alex Spiro. Okay, Spiro. So, okay, now we move on from that issue. Hopefully it gets resolved and we can see maybe have a gun that's tested on both sides. I want to bring up some other updates.

So Baldwin's team is also trying to get rid of the special prosecutor in this case, Andrew. read. They want her kicked off because apparently she is a Republican state lawmaker, and they argue that under New Mexico's constitution, she would be forbidden from playing any judicial role while also serving as under the state's House of Representatives. I don't know if you've had an opportunity to look at the Constitution there. It says under Section 1 of Article 3, a sitting member of the legislature may not exercise any powers properly belonging to either the executive or judicial branch. What do you think how that's going to play out? Listen, it's as simple as that? If that's what it says, she's gone. If that's not what it says, she's not gone. But what Alex

is doing, he is doing his job, which is putting the government to its proof, every single moment, every single thing, every single advantage that the defense can possibly obtain, every disadvantage, it can foist upon the prosecution. He's going to make sure that they rue the day they prosecuted his client. Okay, but the prosecutions come forward and said the defense, his argument is a misconception. It's based on a novel theory that has no support in New Mexican statutes or case law. I know the judge is going to hear this. I think March 27th. Anyway, she might be able to stay on. Well, it's very interesting novel. And again, we always look for what someone says, and there's always a little bit of a kernel of truth and maybe a threat to

pull a novel approach. I will tell you, Mr. Weber, every single case, every single thing that happens in this world. The first time that it happened, it was novel. So just because something is novel doesn't mean that it's wrong. What it means is that Alex found a threat. He's going to pull on it because let's face it, how often in New Mexico is someone going to avail him or herself of this rule? Because how often in New Mexico do they get a case of this profile of this statute with a defendant where they are in the national, if not the worldwide spotlight. And that's a great question. That brings me to the next step of this. So I will tell you, there's been some missteps with the prosecution. You want to add this on? Maybe they had the

wrong special prosecutor. They don't have the murder. They don't have, excuse me, they don't have the firearm. That's a big problem. We also know that it was, what, two weeks ago. They dropped the firearm enhancements, a statute that was going to actually result in maybe significant prison time if Alec Baldwin was minimum mandatory five years. How did they get that wrong? So they got that wrong. They got that wrong.

The prosecution ultimately said, you know, we don't want to litigate this with Alec Baldwin, but really what it was, was they charged him under a new statute that wasn't in effect at the time Helena Hutchins was ultimately killed. I want to get. As my students would know, as my students would know, it's called ex post facto, which means the fancy way of saying, you can't prosecute me for something. thing that when I did it wasn't illegal. A hundred percent, but this is where I think you and I disagree, and I want to spend the

next couple of minutes just going over it. I'm going to present to you what I think are the strongest arguments in favor of these involuntary manslaughter charges against Alec Baldwin. If you want, we could talk about Helena Hutchins as well. Excuse me, we could talk about Hannah Gutierrez Reed. So you and I debated a little bit about this. The way that I see it with Alec Baldwin, do I think that he, obviously he didn't intend for this to happen?

do I think that he knew that there was a bullet in the gun? No. But the mere act of holding a real weapon, and this wasn't a toy, this was a real weapon, and pointing it at someone, you could argue that that that duty of care is heightened. It was a real weapon that maybe he should, even if it was said to be cold, he should have taken the opportunity to take a moment and not point it there. And now I know he says that he didn't pull the trigger, but there's photographic evidence to indicate his finger was on the trigger. We also know that prosecutors have shown evidence that Baldwin wasn't present for required firearms training sessions and that when he did show up, he wasn't really paying attention.

Now, we can get into Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, where it was her responsibility to double-check what Baldwin was doing to make sure this was a safe set. But focusing on Baldwin for a second, those would be the arguments, the main arguments, Randy, what's your counter to that? I'd rather be making my arguments, even though you're the man in the suit wearing the headphones behind the microphone. very simple very very simple number one who the hell is anybody to say what alec balden was what alec balden was doing during the training when he was there how does anybody know he wasn't

paying attention i could be looking at you right now looking at the screen and it looks like i'm paying attention and maybe my mind is a million miles away they said he was on the phone she she said he was on the phone and he doesn't matter i could be teaching my class right now and still giving you my attention nobody knows what he was paying attention to, but that's not the critical argument. The critical argument is there was a superseding cause. There was an intervening cause. There was someone in between Mr. Baldwin and his finger. And that is the person, the armorer, who is responsible for making sure that there are no live rounds in that gun. Mr. Baldwin is an actor. He may have been a director. He may have been a

producer, but it was not his responsibility. And he had no reason to believe that there was a live round in that gun and it's not like he killed her with a blank because you can as you know kill someone with a blank if you are close enough to them he was nowhere near her there was no reason for him to believe that there was a live round in that gun he should not be charged with a crime this case belongs in a civil court it was a tragic accident let them wipe him out financially but criminally he does not belong to be in the caption of a criminal case well randy i wish we had a little bit more time to debate this back and forth. And so are my students, because you're getting a break right now.

And I want to tell everybody this. You are actually speaking in front of your classroom, which is great. We never really have an audience here on sidebar. But if everybody, if anybody can hear me, this is why Randy is such a great lawyer. And why, you know, don't be surprised if Randy starts going out to New Mexico and representing Alec Baldwin for making such good arguments. Oh, Alex Spiro, don't share the spotlight with no one. Randy Zellon, I really appreciate you taking the time.

And as this case progresses, I hope we can have you back. on to talk and little get more into the details of it. But Randy, thanks for taking the time and hopefully your class can give you a round of applause for your great work. Thanks, Jesse. And that's all we have for you here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.